BRITISH MAMMALS 
it is seldom seen except when hunted, and will often frequent a stream 
without its presence being detected. 
The Otter usually lies up during the day in his holt or retreat, 
which may be under a bank, in a hollow pollard tree by the stream, 
or merely a dry bed among reeds or bushes, whence he issues towards 
nightfall to prey on various kinds of fish or on frogs. Eels form a 
large and favourite part of the Otter's diet, as well as salmon and 
grilse, while on the sea-coast numbers of flounders are caught in the 
shallow pools at the mouths of rivers. Occasionally small mammals and 
birds are eaten. 
I have only once seen an Otter abroad during the day, when one 
passed close to me as he made his way along the banks of a rocky 
burn in Sutherland. 
When an Otter enters the water no sound or splash will be noticed, 
as the animal has a wonderful power of silently gliding under the surface, 
leaving nothing more than a ripple and a chain of air bubbles to mark 
the spot where he vanished. Even the speed of the salmon is not sufficient 
to save it, for the Otter will persistently hunt a fish in the pools of a river 
until the latter is exhausted, when it is easily captured and brought ashore 
to be eaten. The prey is often left on the bank with nothing more than 
a bite taken out of the shoulder, and in former days, when Otters and 
salmon were plentiful in Scotland, people used regularly to visit the likely 
spots on the banks of rivers to obtain what the Otter had discarded. 
Charles St. John, who knew its habits intimately, says [Wild Sports 
and U^tural History of the Highlands^ 8th ed. p. 115): "They appear 
to go a considerable distance, generally hunting down the stream, and 
returning up to their place of concealment before dawn. At certain 
places they seem to come to land every night, or, at any rate, every 
time they pass that way. In solitary and undisturbed situations I have 
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